How Tiger Won The Tour Championship

By Jason Logan Created: September 23, 2018

Jason Logan

Jason Logan

LOGAN'S ALLEY

Getty Images

ATLANTA, Ga. - Tiger Woods of the United States celebrates making a par on the 18th green to win the TOUR Championship at East Lake Golf Club on September 23, 2018 in Atlanta, Ga. (Photo by Tim Bradbury/Getty Images)

Bits
Let’s not bury the lede here: That scene on 18 at East Lake GC, where security obviously said the heck with it and let thousands of fans onto the fairway so they could follow Tiger Woods nearly all the way down to the green, was the wildest thing I’ve ever seen in golf. I now have no doubt he’s the world’s all-time most popular athlete ×× Eighty PGA Tour wins for Tiger. Sunday’s was his first in five years, as you know, but also the first for him while wearing an undershirt, I think ×× Vintage Tiger at the Tour Championship, right down to him not needing to play very well in the final round because of the lead he’d built and because nobody else made a significant move ×× If Woods plays like that at Augusta National next April he’ll own a fifth Green Jacket. To me, though, that if remains a big one (see below) ×× What a gutsy performance by Thornhill, Ont.’s Ben Silverman at the Web.com Tour Championship. Needing to return to the four-event Web.com Finals after finishing outside the top 125 on the FedEx Cup ranking as a PGA Tour rookie, Silverman carded rounds of 63-68-67-68 to finish T3 Sunday, moving him inside the top 25 on the Web Finals money list and thereby re-stamping his PGA Tour card for 2018-19. Silverman moved 63 spots up the Finals money list with his Tour Championship performance ×× So that means three Canadians earned PGA Tour cards through the Web.com Tour money list/Web.com Tour Finals money list: Silverman, Adam Svensson and Roger Sloan. They will join Adam Hadwin, Mackenzie Hughes and Nick Taylor as full-timers on the PGA Tour next year, while Corey Conners and David Hearn have conditional status. Graham DeLaet, if and when healthy, will play on a major medical extension.

BitesAbove praise for Tiger Woods stated, I’m not backing off my stance that the Tour Championship is the most inflated golf tournament in the world in terms of importance. Thirty guys in the field, half of whom are simply there for the guaranteed paycheque once the first round is finished and they know their shot at winning the overall FedEx Cup title is out the window for good ×× Still, down the stretch of any tournament — 30 players strong or 156 — the man out front has to fend off his chasers and Woods did just that ×× Rory McIlroy continues to confound. Earlier this year he was simply sublime on Sunday at Bay Hill with a tournament title on the line. Then he was dreadful at Augusta National in the final pairing with Patrick Reed and equally awful on Sunday with Woods. He’s too good to play that bad ×× I’ve mentioned this before but I laugh every time Woods throws grass up in the air to gauge the wind. He throws it in the direction he thinks the wind is blowing. Every time. Not how you do it, Tiger ×× Dustin Johnson going to cross-handed putting the week before the Ryder Cup? Interesting. Looked decent ×× Speaking of which, the U.S. should destroy Europe this week, even if it is an away game for them. When I look at Europe I have a hard time finding natural pairings. First wave on Friday for the U.S. and you can almost guarantee you’ll see Justin Thomas-Rickie Fowler, Woods-Bryson DeChambeau, Patrick Reed-Jordan Spieth, Johnson-Brooks Koepka. It ought to be a 3-1 lead at least.

Barbs
It’s still hard to believe what we are seeing with Tiger, isn’t it? Not that he hasn’t proved people wrong before. There were many who said he’d never win again after his downfall in 2009. And a few years later he had won eight times in two seasons. But coming back from apparently not knowing if he’d ever be able to physically play the game again just one year ago? Mind-boggling. But also: hitting the driver as consistently well as he has these last few tournaments after not being able to find a fairway on the front nine of the final round of the PGA Championship (but still somehow shooting three under par on that side). Woods has been a stubborn guy over the years, especially when it has come to the big stick. Now, he came into the professional game bashing the ball ridiculous distances and completely overpowering fields and golf courses so his early success was born of that strategy. Then he became the game’s most well-rounded player of all time, with maybe its best-ever swing for a time, and won in a variety of ways: with his ball-striking, with his short game, with his putting, with his brain. When he struggled — even before his downfall of 2009 and later as he endured so many injuries and surgeries — it seemed he always reverted to ripping it as hard as possible with that driver and so often that sent the ball wayward. Even when he returned earlier this year he kept talking about his phenomenal swing speed and, while it was certainly impressive, the driver was his most unreliable club (along with his putter at times, though mercifully he’s got that trusty Scotty Cameron back in the bag. Benching that was like Marc Crawford sitting Wayne Gretzky in the shootout in Nagano.) But either somebody got to him or Woods got sick of missing fairways because he’s sucked it up and sacrificed some distance for accuracy, going back to an old driver shaft before the Northern Trust and not bothering to swing as hard as he has so often been prone to do. Do you know when it was obvious that Woods was going to win Sunday and McIlroy was going to melt? When Tiger gave up nearly 20 yards to Rory off the first tee but didn’t bat an eye and then hit the day’s closest approach shot to that green. Birdie out of the gate. And the rest was a formality. Who knows if this new approach will last (Tiger has already talked about his desire to get in the gym to add muscle over the off-season and after Thursday’s first round he joked about how skinny he looked watching his highlights.) And don’t get me wrong — he isn’t exactly bunting the golf ball. But this little restraint he’s shown, leading to a lovely rhythm with his driver, has been the most fun thing for me to watch as he’s played so well of late. Give me some of that at Augusta, Tiger. No need to go all out anymore.

Obscure thought of the week: A first-attempt successful parallel parking job is among life’s great pleasures and therefore I’ll never understand why so many people are too chicken to try to pull it off.

Jason Logan

LOGAN'S ALLEY

Jason Logan is the editor of SCOREGolf Magazine and the co-host of SCOREGolf TV.

Steve
September 25, 2018 at 2:57 pm

I remember the British Open would do the same thing with the crowd at 18 in the final group on Sunday – especially if it contained who would be the winner. The players would hit their approach shot then the crowds would rush onto the fairway. The players would disappear into the crowd for a minute or so then emerge with a big smile and wave. Google “Tom Watson British Open crowd” and you’ll see it. Similar to Tiger’s welcoming on Sunday, it is a great thing to see.